Errata in the traveling itinerary 2008

I forgot to add one days spent with Sandeep @ the Belgian Defence Day involving Aeroshow.....scanning photos reminded me this. So, yo!!!! I have finished a month of travel already with a week to go. That's so coool.....

Travel Itinerary during summer 2008

This summer (Mar. - Aug. 2008) I have traveled a bit (not a lot). So much so that people in Leuven have started assuming that I won’t be around in town during weekends and in a process have missed a lot of invitations and delicious food…..hahaha.

Rucha & some friends have started saying that I have been doing everything other than PhD. So I decided to take a stock of the situation. My travel itinerary during summer 2008 looked like this:

• Natural Born Hiker (NBH) Treks….Thomas has baptimized the trekking group as NBH: 5 Days (missed one trek on Friday because of work. I need to highlight this fact)
• Berlin trip with Naveen: 3 days
• Frankfurt Trip to meet Koti: 4 days
• Italy (Como-Venice-Rome-Pisa) Trip: 6 days. I had to take 3 days vacation for this. Don’t you think I needed to award myself for an effort during IEDM submission? Fair enough I guess.
• French Open Finals: 2 days
• Maastricht @ Anant’s place: 2 days
• Trip to Trier: 1 day
• Trip of Keukenhof: 1 day
• Trip to Amsterdam: 1 day
• Dinant with Prof. Nandita: 1 day
• Ghent to meet Prof. Nandita: 1 day
• Brussles Flower Carpet: 1 day
• Sand Castle in Blankenberge: 1 day

These 29 days traveling include ~180kms of trekking during hikes, 29 x 200 (Avg. pictures in a day) = 5800 pictures in total. If I go for kayak (which I plan to do) for the last weekend of Aug. it would be 30 days (a month) of travel in 6months. Now, is that a lot??? I am sure that there are many who do better. As usual ”Yeh Dil Maange More” and I have the following things on cart:

• Waterloo for a day
• Radha des for a day
• 2 NBH hikes: 2-3 days

And then I would let the winter begin......

1 month (4 weekends spent entirely in Leuven) of travel in a span of 6 months is not bad and I accept that I have traveled a bit but I refute the claim that I have not been working or doing everything other than PhD. I have worked only for 2 weekends (but hey I am not supposed to work over weekends) this season, one during the IEDM deadline and this weekend as I have a lot of things on my plate. During One weekend we made long awaited Vadapav at Naveen's place and there was only one weekend in 6 months which I can call to be unproductive.....Anyway, enjoyed every bit of this season and I hope that this wonderful summer continues….

For All Chess Players...Try this out....

This would be quite nice thing to try @ Desperado, a Chess Club in Leuven. Well, the usual atmosphere @ the Club is not very different with toady players making their moves.

Vadapav

If you ask a mumbaikar (mumbait) as to what he has been born and brought up with, many answers would come. Some would say mumbai local train, some would argue it with gardi (marathi) or bheed (hindi) as people around never seem to vanish. A film buff would certainly call for bollywood while marathi manus would pitch in for Natak. For me though, there is only one thing that symbolizes Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and that is none other than Vadapav. Pav bhaji, pani puri, bhel puri and other chat items come close but can not really replace the importance of Vadapav in Mumbaikars life. This was the reason why I have nominated Vadapav in IMEC's cookbook this year.

The story on the internet about Vadapav's origin says that some time in the 1960's or the 1970's a mill worker in Mumbai always managed to skip his breakfast to make it on time to his work place. Concerned about his health his mother/wife thought of a new way for him to be able to take his BHAJI* (Mashed/diced potatoes mixed with green chillies, ginger and a tadka (tempering) of mustard seeds and turmeric.) and have it on the move.

She made balls of BHAJI dipped them into batter made of gram flour and deep fried them. Thus was born the BATATA VADA. Later came along the PAV (a kind of bun, in India it is known as Pav) and so did the Chutney (essentially garlic and red chilli.)

I am not sure if the tale is true or not, but who cares all I know is some smart Maharashtrian cook did magic and stumbled upon what is now the MOST common and exhaustively consumed fast food in Maharashtra. Nowadays, BATATA VADA is the MOST popular and people love to have it any time of the day during all seasons. The combination of BATATA VADA and split PAV along with chutney continues to be Mumbai's sledgehammer answer to the hamburger.

Drawing inspiration from the story when we made Vadapav @ Naveen's place in Leuven, they looked like this (Picture Quality Regretted)......Yummy!!!!!

Carlos Nunez: An amazing Spanish Instrumentalist...

Missing a game of Chess on Friday is usually a very difficult task but I happen to join Vinay and his friends for a concert by Carlos Nunez in OudMarkt, Leuven on one of the summer Fridays. It certainly proved to be a better use of time....certainly better than loosing a game of chess :-)

I neither knew the artist nor the group and was very much naive about its creations. It was a total serendipity and in no time I joined the audience tapping and dancing and applauding to their tunes. It was informed that the music being played was Celtic music and it looked (....oops heard) so familiar. The symphony created by Carlos and the group had really made the audience spellbound. Every tune deserved a once more. It was really an unforgettable experience so much so that I tried to look for the videos on youtube and (after an effort to query a colleague for Nun yen's Spanish spelling) I was lucky. The more I hear these tunes, more I seem to fall in love with them....specially the ones with (mostly irish) dance performance going together with the tunes. Here are some of the videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grHOcHIhXr8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkYBC0rJzf4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ejl5PD5KLXc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br-WKc3vvPQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlJyT3hwZdE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSFY-Ib9tzE&feature=related

youtube would provide a lot more.....

Do enjoy....I am sure you would like it.

Construction Workers Lunching on a Crossbeam - 1932

I saw this photo @ Anant's place in Maastricht. You could hardly find such an adventurous workplace (rather workspace) nowadays :-). Quite sure that Environment and Health Care & Safety (EH&S) folks @ this site would have had to resign from their job on the spot :-) Jay was very right about the description except that it's not empire state building but Rockefeller Center in New York. Here is photo and description:



This iconic photo is one of the most famous images ever shot. Construction workers take a break from their work on the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center in New York to have lunch atop a steel beam 800 feet above ground. The photo was taken Sept. 29, 1932.
Photo by Charles C. Ebbets/ © Bettmann Corbis